This invention relates to a method of processing a light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material, and, more particularly, it relates to a method of processing a light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material, that can reduce graininess, can improve sharpness, and also can prevent the light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material from being surface-peeled and the emulsion surface from being scratched during the processing.
In general, light-sensitive silver halide color photographic materials comprise a substrate provided by coating on its surface with three kinds of photographic silver halide emulsion layers selectively subjected to spectral sensitization so as to have sensitivities to blue light, green light and red light. For example, light-sensitive silver halide photographic materials for color negative are generally provided by coating with a blue-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, a green-sensitive silver halide sensitive layer and a red-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer in this order from the side to be exposed, and, between the blue-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer and the green-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer, a yellow filter is usually provided in order to absorb the blue light transmitting through the blue-sensitive silver halide emulsion layer. It is further practiced to provide intermediate layers between the respective emulsion layers for special purposes, and also a protective layer as an outermost layer. It is also known that these respective light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layers can be provided in the order other than the above-mentioned, and it is further known that two or more layers of light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layers having sensitivity to the light of each color in substantially the same wavelength regions and having different sensitivities can be used as the respective silver halide emulsion layers. In these light-sensitive silver halide color photographic materials, an aromatic primary amine type color developing agent, for example, is used as a color developing agent to develop exposed silver halide grains, to form dye images by the reaction of an oxidized product of the color developing agent with a dye forming coupler. In such a method, usually, phenol or naphthol type couplers, 5-pyrazolone type, pyrazolinobenzimidazole type, pyrazolotriazole type, indazolone type or cyanoacetyl type magenta couplers, and acylacetamide type yellow couplers are respectively used for the formation of the cyan, magenta and yellow dye images. These dye forming couplers are contained in light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layers or in a developing solution. This invention is suitable as a method of processing a light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material containing the couplers in silver halide emulsion layers in the previously non-dispersed form.
Recent years, it has been practiced to miniaturize the image size of films and hence miniaturize a camera to enhance the portability, but, as well known, this may cause poorness of print images. Namely, as a picture size of a light-sensitive color photographic material is made smaller, the enlargement magnification becomes larger when a print is produced in a same size, and therefore, in proportion thereto, the graininess or the sharpness of printed images becomes poor. Accordingly, it is required to improve the graininess, resolution and sharpness of films in order to obtain good prints even when a camera has been miniaturized.
Of these, as techniques for improving the graininess, techniques improved almost only by light-sensitive materials have been hitherto known and practically used, such as a method in which a high speed reactive coupler is used as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 62454/1980, a method in which the number of silver halide grains is increased as described in T. H. James "The Theory of the Photographic Process", 4th Ed. pp.620-621; a method in which used is a non-diffusible coupler capable of forming a diffusible dye wherein a dye spreads in the desired degree by reacting with an oxidized product of a color developing agent; a method in which the silver iodide content is made to be 8 mole % or more as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 128443/1985; and other methods described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 191036/1984, No. 3628/1985, No. 128440/1985, etc.
On the other hand, core/shell emulsions have been recently developed as a silver halide emulsion having a high sensitivity, whose grains have been made finer and silver is so effectively utilized as to meet the requirement of resource protection. One of them is monodispersed core/shell emulsion prepared by utilizing a preliminary silver halide emulsion as a seed of crystal, and laminating successive precipitates on it one and another while controlling intentionally the formulation of the respective precipitates or the progress environment. Including a core/shell type high sensitivity emulsion wherein the core contains silver iodide, these core/shell emulsions are found to have very desirable high sensitivity and other photographic performances.
In particular, as a result of studies made by the present inventors, a light-sensitive color photographic material containing a core/shell silver halide grains containing 3.0 mole % or more of silver iodide is found to have insufficient graininess. Especially, the graininess to be achieved when the size has been small-formatted is a technical subject for an improvement to be made a great deal.
Similarly, as an emulsion having a high sensitivity and useful for eliminating the defects conventionally involved, there have been developed a technique employing tabular silver halide grains as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 113930/1983, No. 113934/1983, No. 127921/1983, No. 108532/1983, etc.
According to this tabular grains technique, even if the number of light quantum captured by silver halide grains increases, the amount of silver to be used does not increase and also no poorness of images is caused. However, even when these tabular grains are used, the light-sensitive color photographic material containing a tabular silver halide grains containing 3.0 mole % or more of silver iodide can not have sufficient graininess. Especially, the graininess to be achieved when the size has been small-formatted is a performance to be improved. In particular, the defect in the graininess of a light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material having been extremely small-formatted as in the case of a so-called disk film obstructs the spread of the same.
The technique to improve graininess is generally carried out by designing the layer constitution of a light-sensitive silver halide color photographic material as described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 15495/1974, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 7230/1978, etc., but it is not sufficient and required to be further improved.